Memphis-based SoGiv offers footwear and apparel with a lot of give

Local apparel and footwear firm earmarks part of sales to charity

Designer Edward Bogard has developed a nonprofit footwear and apparel line, SoGiv, to generate money for 16 different organizations and local charities.

The two styles of shoes include the SoGiv Classic, which comes in different colors to correlate with different causes.

Edward Bogard tried to make his way in the real world after college.

He bounced from barista to bed salesman to brand name clothing expert, but nothing really stuck.

"I worked at Starbucks, and I can remember someone ordering a coffee in the drive-thru, handing me money and I gave them change, and I told them to have a nice day and they drove off without their coffee," he said.

"Obviously I'm not good at serving coffee."

Eventually he had enough gumption and a solid enough of an idea of what he should be doing to walk away from his manager's position at Abercrombie and Fitch and do what he was born to do — design duds and give back to his community.

"I have always idolized people like Michael Jackson, seeing how they give back through their own gifts," Bogard, 30, said.

"I always wanted to change the world, and I knew I was no medical doctor or surgeon, so it couldn't be done that way, so I had to figure out a way to change lives using the gifts that God blessed me with."

And so was born SoGiv, a footwear and apparel company that donates 20 percent of every purchase to one of 16 different charities or causes.

"I take the name from our slogan, 'Every pair sold, we give,'" Bogard said.

So far Bogard has designed two shoe styles.

The Global Awareness Shoe is a gray, black and red athletic shoe that displays the organization's logo, a swish-like mark comprised of the seven continents, that wraps around the side, with the purpose of inspiring thoughts on a global level.

The Converse Chuck Taylor-inspired low-top, named the SoGiv Classic, comes in different colors, to correlate with different causes, including pink for breast cancer awareness, green for Earth Day, red for the American Heart Association, and so on.

As of now he is in negotiation with two superstores with the hopes they will carry his entire line of shoes and apparel. But Bogard isn't sitting around waiting on any phone calls.

He's holding book drives and gathering 1,128 books for students at Cherokee Elementary to read in the summer. He and his pool of 75 volunteers are gathering 550 cans of food for their canned goods drive to feed those in need in the winter months. And he's using the prototypes of his shoes, which can be found on SoGiv's website at sogiv.org, during his mentorship sessions with the children of Families of Incarcerated Individuals to teach them about the seven continents.

"I think it's a great organization. Edward provided us with mentors who met with the kids and taught them different things about Africa, whether it was food or history or clothing, and it was a really enriching and worthwhile experience," said Erica Nason, a former volunteer coordinator at FII. "I like the fact that SoGiv touches such a wide array of people. They help a lot of charities."

Over the past year Bogard and his team adopted Cherokee Elementary in Orange Mound and led coat drives, toy drives, school uniform drives and school supplies drives, all without any pressure from the school.

"They just came to us and said, 'Hey, we're going to do a book drive,' or a toy drive," Nikita J. Reed, Cherokee's principal, said.

His involvement with the school has not only provided some much-needed materials, but also inspired higher performance from the students, albeit through the technique of the dangling carrot.

"He gets a plethora of toys donated from all sorts of people. We use them as incentives for the boys and girls so they will improve their attendance or academic performance," Reed said.

It seems to be doing the trick.

"We are seeing improvements," she said.

Making the big jump from retail jobs in the local mall to creating his own nonprofit design company was easy for the native Memphian.

He grew up watching his mother, a schoolteacher for Memphis City Schools for 35 years, give his outgrown clothes to children in the neighborhood and keep extra uniforms in her classroom for families in crisis.

"I had a front-row seat to all of her caring and giving ways," Bogard said.

He spent all his free time at work using his product and industrial design degree from Savannah College of Art and Design, creating designs on the computer.

Eventually it all came together for him.

"It was like one of those halos that you see. The light bulb went off," he said.

In October 2011 he received his nonprofit status, and so far has the two shoe designs, six T-shirt designs, three bracelet designs, and 16 adopted causes.

He hosts a different event almost monthly, with a turkey drive coming up Friday, Nov. 16 at Luxe, formerly the Powerhouse Memphis on G.E. Patterson, which has adopted SoGiv and has offered its facility for all future SoGiv events.

The turkey drive comes in the form of a "paint and sip," and for $30, ticket holders receive a bottle of wine, paint brushes and canvas to create their own piece of artwork, with a portion of their proceeds going toward purchasing a turkey for families in need at Cherokee Elementary.

"I wasn't satisfied just designing and selling shoes to consumers that meant absolutely nothing aside from the fact that they looked cool or were aesthetically pleasing. SoGiv is a footwear and apparel line with a purpose," Bogard said. "You're not living if you're not giving."